Burning Thorns Grow

Part III- Burning Thorns Grow

Thorns are a rose’s way to be able to protect the softness of her petals. To ward off unwanted wanderers who don’t honour her delicate unfolding. Her thorns are her strength to be able to bloom again and again, no matter the hardship. There to let all know that she isn’t for everyone. She isn’t scared of blood, pain, or fighting to keep her peace, and especially her love. 

What has become one of my favourite stories in my own unfolding towards God’s love is that, like the rose, we must grow our own thorns to protect the love that we possess. It is far from a comfortable part of one’s growth. As I can imagine, for a rose it is not easy growing all those thorns. It must take time to become tough enough, hard enough to puncture even skin. 

In writing this part of my story, it’s one of the reasons why I haven’t been able to talk about my spiritual unfolding earlier. 

That simply, I had to grow my thorns.  

Through multiple heartbreaks, tears, screaming, denial, invisible wounds, and years of experiencing the growth of one’s thorns. That only now, and not without still hesitancy, do I have the courage to share. 

Even as I write this, I find my fingers unwilling to want to start writing further. Wanting to leave this blog post as vague as possible. So that you won’t have to know the truth when it comes to learning about the unhealthy masculine energy, as the embodiment of the feminine resides in me. 

Now that wouldn’t be any fun, would it? Keeping all my secrets and lessons in. So at times, and begrudgingly, I write on. I’m here to let you know my thorns have grown strong enough to continue. Depending on the day, the month, the season, my emotional realm, or mental state will vary the extent of the knowledge I provide here. 

Alongside Spirit reminding, no, encouraging me not to silence my voice. Let me show you what I mean when Spirit likes to step in.

Daily walks are one of my favourite times to see what spirit has lined up for me on my path.

On one of my mental health walks this week I stumbled past a discarded piece of paper:


“Sharing my story could help others.”

The universe loves to give us signs on our path to continue doing the work we know we are here to do… and this is mine. I honestly laugh wholeheartedly when I stumble upon my guides’, angels’, ancestors’, and spirits’ messages. They’re lovingly blunt with me—’cause if not, I’d question them constantly. I swear I can see them shaking their heads at me as I write.

Now I must preface, I’ve had a very healthy relationship when it came to male members in my life. Far from perfect, but I would say the closest thing that one might. My father has been and still is a loving, kind, respectful, and hardworking man. Not one really for words, which has been a learning in itself, but luckily his love was that of action.  

My two younger brothers, full of energy, protection, straightforward thinking, humour, and ridiculousness, always made me laugh growing up and even now, I enjoy every time I spend around them. 

All my grandfathers were unique and showed ways of the masculine of their own. Once again, I was raised with beautiful men in my life. 

So when I was 19, I left my high school job working for a local family-owned butcher shop, whose owner himself was extremely fatherly as well. Very supportive, an amazing first boss anyone could have asked for. Everything changed, I would say, when I began serving at Earls, a Calgary chain restaurant. Away from my family and friends’ love, protecting presence, and view, my virtues, to say the least, were very much in danger to the prowling, predatory eyes of men within the service industry. Luckily, my parents raised me with a good head on my shoulders, alongside good genes. 

Growing up in Alberta, being as cold and snowy as it is, there was, I swear, close to 10 months of the year where alcohol was very present. Not much to do during the colder months back in the day. I was freshly legal, alcohol was new and exciting to me. Being able to drink at bars, go to liquor stores on my own was an experience I’d never done. Mix in being broken up with my high school sweetheart of 2 years, and I was very much single, wild, and free. Coming out of this relationship and working at Earls, with men’s eyes all on you, I hadn’t yet learned the lesson unfolding, where the unhealthy masculine only wanted to take from the feminine without any notion of love. Or if there was, it was under false pretence, worse yet, manipulation to get me into their beds. 

Please note I speak from the side of a feminine/female-identifying woman—to know that this lusting without love is possible within every individual, as we hold both yin/yang energy within us, ever dancing.

This is MY story. With MY words. Written to share in hopes to heal.

Now, back to my truth unfolding. At the time, I didn’t realize that this goddess energy radiated from me. I wouldn’t figure out until 15 years later that shining one’s light can be a medicine of its own. Shining that light into the shadow aspects of one’s soul to be seen, forgiven, and loved. As the old saying goes—a fire pulls the moths into the flame, enticingly so. The best way I can explain how I learned to grow my thorns was when I learned how to dance with the Devil himself. The Devil being the unhealthy, toxic masculine energy. 

He’s a great dancer, by the way. 

The way he holds me, smells, licks my lips, digs his claws deep into my skin. It’s intoxicating. There is a power that the feminine energy wants to soften to—feel safe in. Alongside the softness, one of the feminine’s true natures, there is its balance—raw, sensual, creative, passionate, and beauty that one can possess. No wonder the masculine wants to get its claws in it. What comes so naturally to us is mesmerizing to them. 

In my own personal journey, in my younger years, I remember the ease in naturally embodying this beautiful energy. Though in its raw form, without any limitations or boundaries (thorns) put on it yet, it was hard to understand the power it held. 

This is the part where it starts getting tricky—remembering the details of specific events that transpired. I drank heavily to hush the guilt and shame I carried with me. Of all the men—at times, women as well—that I followed into their beds or brought back to mine. Where I lost myself in the masculine, searching for love. As a girl wanting to grow into a woman, it took me a while to understand that not everyone has the best intention in mind. That people will use you to catch even a glimpse of the raw feminine energy. I am and forever will be a sexual individual. What do I love more than sex, you ask? I love love. Now put that into a teen/young adult’s body… welp, let’s just say it got dangerous fast. Alongside my open rose petal heart, I didn’t realize that I even knew I could grow thorns to protect myself. I hadn’t had to! My first boyfriend and I loved each other deeply, so sex came very naturally and was a beautiful balance of give and receive. 

I didn’t realize that people would only take from you, use you, lie to you, ghost you, cast you aside, make you feel like you weren’t enough. That you were too much, that you were crazy, brush you off, play you against other feminine souls only wanting to love. I didn’t realize a flame lit that quietly began to burn me. I didn’t realize the rage I began to hold towards God, Spirit, and the masculine all this made me.

I’ve danced with the devil long enough,
When God out reached he’s hand,
I couldn’t help but grasp it.
As I was tired of dancing to the same ol’ tune
My sins played.

Until my next spur of vulnerability arises in me.
-Emma

The Wild Rose

The Wild Rose - Part 1

It’s funny how, when you start something deeply rooted in the seat of your soul, there’s a moment where it all begins to flow again. An ocean of words had been waiting to spill from my very being, yet I had been holding them back with a simple plug. In hindsight, my Godly plug, I had convinced myself that writing again would be far worse than it actually was. And now, as I sit here writing, I feel nothing but pure joy pouring through me.

To paint a picture for you, I’m sitting in a coffee shop in my Vancouver neighborhood. Honestly, I had been rushing to finish my three daily journal pages just to get here. I picked up this three-page journaling prompt from The Artist’s Way, a book that had been profoundly impactful when I was traveling through Ireland. (We’ll get back to that.) I hurried to get ready, skipped breakfast, grabbed my laptop, and ran out of the house. The early morning air carried that crisp West Coast chill, a gentle reminder of winter’s presence. While the rest of the country deals with heavy snow, here, we get a slight frosting. I found a small spot nestled in the warmly lit coffee shop corner, and as I settled in, I felt an old, familiar joy. The simple pleasure of writing, the same joy I felt when I first started my blog, had found me once again.

The ever-unfolding nature of one’s journey always makes me laugh. So often, the past circles back in unexpected ways. Living close to the ocean has taught me well, the ebb and flow of life is inevitable.

I haven’t always lived on the West Coast. I was actually born in Wild Rose Country, more commonly known as Alberta. I find it wildly comical that, despite my lifelong love for roses and my devotion to walking the way of the rose, I was born in a province where the wild rose is the official flower.

And so, this is where today’s story begins.

If you were hoping for me to start my story in Ireland, I’m afraid there are events that must be told first, events that made my time in Ireland and my discovery of God there so profoundly life-changing. This is the beginning of a much larger story. Don’t worry, it’s worth the read. I’ll do my best to summarize without leaving out too much.

I’ve always been a wild rose myself. Born a middle child, I didn’t carry the responsibilities my older sister did. At the same time, being the eldest of two younger brothers meant I was far from being babied. I embraced my wild child nature, and, quite frankly, I flourished in it. Free-spirited, joyful, and untamed, I had more energy than my parents probably knew how to handle at times. Deeply emotional and, on some days, carrying more confidence in my left tooth than the average person has in their entire body. Even now, I still have more energy than most. If you’re wondering my secret, well, in the words of the great Lady Gaga, ‘I was born this way’.

Thankfully, my wild and free nature was never too restricted by rules. My mother was a florist, my father an electrician, both a blessing in different ways. We had enough rules to keep us from becoming unruly children (there were four of us, after all), but more than enough freedom to express ourselves artistically and creatively. Another unique part of my upbringing? We were raised without structured religion. My parents believed in something, but no specific faith was ever placed upon us. Looking back, I see this as both a blessing and a curse on my path to God, the Universe, Spirit—whatever name resonates most.

Without any structured spiritual practice growing up, the closest thing to a guiding philosophy we had was simple: Be kind to others, and Love. When I think about it now, that core belief still shapes my spiritual path today.

Alberta, in the ’90s and early 2000s, was…how do I put this kindly? —very white. And I don’t just mean the year-round snow. I didn’t understand much about religion back then. All I knew was that church was a place some people went on Sundays, which meant some of my school friends couldn’t hang out with me. Or that certain schools required baptism, and since we weren’t baptized, we couldn’t go. I attended public school, where I was fortunate to be surrounded by a mix of different backgrounds, cultures, and religious beliefs—though, to be fair, still a lot of white snow coverage. If you catch my drift.

My cousins, who were the same age as my sister and me, went to Catholic school, church, and all that jazz. If you ask anyone in my family, especially my mom, they’ll tell you I hated going to church as a kid. I would throw an absolute fit every time we had to go. My poor parents couldn’t understand why I harbored such an intense aversion to something I had barely interacted with. And honestly? That deep discomfort never really left me. Even into my twenties, whenever I traveled with my mom to Europe and she wanted to visit churches for their architecture, I’d be desperate to leave as soon as we stepped inside. (Sorry, Mom, for being such a pain in the ass. I know you lovingly remind me of this often!)

I think my aversion to structured religion solidified when I hit puberty. As I grew, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, I began to notice something: I didn’t fit in.

I was loud. I was bright. I had a beautiful personality. And I was undeniably, unapologetically, highly sexual—even as a teenager. Fun fact: At the ripe age of 12 or 13, I wrote a fanfiction with sex scenes in it, despite having no experience, just an awakening desire fueled by books and online fanfics.

So this all left me wondering:

Where did I fit in the eyes of God?

Where were the wild, desire-filled women in God’s vision? Because from what I had been shown, femininity in religion was solely embodied by the Virgin Mary. And yet, I knew in my bones that babies didn’t just come from nowhere.

Where was the acknowledgment of sex? Of erotic energy? Of the sweat, the fluids, the heat, and passion? To me, that was the closest thing to something truly spiritual. And yet, it was nowhere to be found in the religious teachings around me.

I was far from the Virgin Mary—I knew that. So did that mean I didn’t belong? Was I cast out simply for being a woman?

Churches spoke of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But what about the mothers, the daughters, the grandmothers?

The absence of the divine feminine in spirituality as I knew it left me feeling erased.

So again where did I, as a female in all my glory that I deeply felt in my body, fit in?

In turn this deep, internal confusion likely played a subconscious role in shaping the life I led between the ages of 19 and 21. I had broken up with my first love/high school sweet heart, and had just began serving, after a trip from England. I graduated and being seeing as adult woman out in the world I felt so free.

I was a young woman who was a far cry from unattractive, and trust me men were well aware of this too.

I was young, and I was about to learn a lot about the unhealthy masculine very quickly.

Welcome to my downfall.

Time Off for Mental Health

Rushing off the bus all my luggage in tow, there was only an hour before the walk in clinic was about to close in the small BC town I just moved too. Flying for the last 6 days as a Flight attendant, barely slept the night before. Then again, barely been sleeping for the last 6 months really. I stepped through the walk in clinic's doors relieved that I made it. I had two days only to get my plan in order before I would have been at the mercy of being on-call for work for the next month. My heart squeezed with anxiety, I couldn't go back to work not so soon.

I was greeted by the receptionist, who begun the usual in-take questions.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No I don't" I replied trying my best to be my usual friendly self.

"Have you been here before?"

"No I just moved here" Literally like a month ago, so happy to have moved from the city life. Where 6 years of life, memories, and well a lot of good came with the bad.

"Do you have your health card?" While I handed her my card, I knew I should've printed my doctors note I needed filled out, so I could request short term disability. Which, I'd never in my 8 years of flying have ever taken a leave. Hell at max I took sick day maybe at most once a year, if that! But after talking to two of my friends from work who had done it, they nudged me to do the same. Just a bit of time off that's all I need I thought. I didn't have the chance to get the form printed from being between cities, hotels, buses, flights, and resorts. While she was typing my information in, I meekly asked If I could print a form I needed sighed for work with her printer?

She of course, following procedures said that she couldn't print off any papers for me, which logically I understood. Yet that one defeating moment broke all that was left of my composure. As I began to try to respond with a shaky soft voice, "OK, I'll try to get it printed for next time." I could feel my mask break, tears whelming behind my eyes, my breath becoming shorter. Without moving her gaze from the computer screen the receptionist asked for my address. As I began responding that's when all the tears that I had been holding in on the ferry and bus ride over began spilling freely. Bless the receptionist who soften automatically noticed me struggling to talk, passed the tissue box over.

After a struggle to give my address through soft sobs and intakes of breath, she asked the final question: "Reason for visit?" I couldn't speak anymore, so she found my words for me as I could but only numbly nod. "Stress leave."

I was thankfully taken to an empty patient room where I didn't have to be sitting with all the other patients. I then ended up crying for an hour and a half straight before the doctor even saw me. I finally came to the conscious acknowledged that I needed help. My first step which is always the hardest, was seeking the help I needed. I couldn't keep going the way I was without the outcome becoming tragic.

Why is it that we take our mental health for granted so often? That we usually have to hit rock bottom, or in my case a few rock bottoms before admitting we need to start looking for help? Why do we push ourselves harder or just keep going without the rest and time off that we need? Why do we think that after an end of a relationship, a traumatic event big or small, or move that we can just go right back to a regular routine?

I'm here through my own shit and still ongoing shit, to tell you sometimes you just can't. And its time to take the hint from your loved ones that its time to take time off.

Your mental health is so so so important. No matter what life is/has thrown at you, what responsibilities, expectations, and stresses its not worth your health. Take the time off. If you like me is dealing with:

- Depression/anxiety
- Unstable emotions
- Present or post trauma
- Exhaustion, or a difficulty sleeping or staying asleep
- Thoughts that life would be better without you/hopelessness
- Substance, or alcohol abuse - Isolation
- Or unstable/unhealthy eating habits (overeating/under eating)

If you're dealing with one or more of these even, it's a clear tell sign that its time to step back and start taking care of your health.

I'm currently one month in from the day I walked in to the clinic so I could start looking after myself. I've been to counseling, acupuncture and back to a healthy routine (yoga, meditation, exercise, journaling and leaning on friends and family.). I still have my low days when I cry till my eyes are as puffy as squash balls, where I don't want to get out of the comfort of my bed. Binge watch Netflix and scrolling heavily through social media to numb my pain. But one day at a time they are becoming far and few between. I'm finally having more days that are brighter than dark ones, but only because I've taken the time off of work and everything else and have been focusing all that energy on myself.

Healing isn't something that happens overnight, especially if you let it build up like I did. But you can heal over time, one day at a time, one doctors appointment, one counseling session, one yoga practice, one healthy meal, one friendly conversation at a time. If you are going through anything please make sure to take the steps to bettering your mental health what ever that means, it truly takes one step. Which is to accept that sometimes we all need a little help.

With Love,

Emma

Healers of all Kinds

Acupuncturists, Reiki Masters, Counselors, Healing Touch, RMT’s, Aromatherapists, Shiatsu, Yoga Therapists, EFT, Tapping, Floating, Pranic Breathing, Shamans, Witches, Angelic Alchemists and that’s only naming a few of the many types of healing modalities out there lately! Yet now this asks the question what kind of healer are you in need of?

Healers of all kinds are becoming more and more common as the year's progress and our search as humans to grow and focus on a well rounded well being becomes primary. With Western medicine not always having the answers, we’ve started looking outside of this system for more well rounded healing approaches.

With so many options out there it can become overwhelming of what kind of healer you’re in need of. Honestly, I’m quite experimental when it comes to healers and am always curious about everyone’s different techniques and practices! I’ve pretty much have dabbled with almost all the healers listed above! I also love recommending to my clients different kind of healers to help promote and elevate their healing journey. Though unless you’ve had your own experience with all these different techniques how can you begin to recommend what other kinds of healers to see!

I’d love to write to you all on which healer to see but when I was about to start writing which healers I suggest I realized I can’t tell you what works best because well…your not me. What works for me may not work for you. With that, this is how I’ll help you decided on what kind of healer you should try or go to.

Is there any kind of healing modality that you’ve been interested in for ages and have wanted to give a try? Yes? Awesome start there!

Have there been any healers that someone has recommended and has piqued your interest? Sweet go book an appointment!

Still, don’t know where to begin? Start anywhere! Try some of the ones I’ve suggested above or look into all the others out there, do a bit of research. The internet is such a powerful tool nowadays and you can look up all kinds of healers and what they specialize in. One will usually speak louder and feel like a good fit more than others. Take the leap!

There is no right or wrong way of choosing what kind of healer to go with. Only that you start! Be aware that when you find a healer that works for you, you’ll know the healing you receive from them will feel so aligned and will make you break the old you into a big and brighter version of yourself! If you walk away feeling lighter this is usually a clear tell sign that you’ve found the healer for you. Don’t get me wrong there are times that you will feel worse off, but it won’t be because of the practitioner or the healing service received but because of what you’re dealing with. Be mindful of this, before blaming the practitioner make sure to ask if it was practitioners skills or if it was actually your ego not wanting to change and heal? Though be warned there are cases of healers that are not in it for the right cause which is to mindful of as well.

I truly believe that there are all these different kind of healers out there because there are so many different kinds of people out there. The fact that our souls are constantly growing, changing and evolving means that one healer that you might have been seeing for years may no longer be aligned with you and you know what? That’s totally ok! Don’t worry you're not abandoning your previous healer it just might mean that you're ready for the next chapter of your healing journey. How awesome is that! I think the reason that I’ve dabbled in so many healers is that not every healing I’ve needed was the same and that I needed a different type of healing from a different practitioner because that’s what at the time I needed. Don’t be scared of trying something new because there are benefits in it all of them.

Here’s to you on your healing journey, and the best of luck in your search for your healer! If you’d like any recommendations on a specific healers don’t hesitate to send a message in the Contact page!

With Love n’ Light,
Emma